Conventionally, various types of sunroof devices have been proposed, and a sunroof device, for example, described in Patent Document 1 has been known.
The sunroof device described in Patent Document 1 uses a construction in which a guide rail is separately arranged on the outside of a vehicle to open a movable panel more widely, and its complicated construction inevitably increases the number of parts and the costs. Also, in this sunroof device, the up-and-down movement and slide of the front part of a functional bracket (22) and the up-and-down movement and slide of the rear part thereof are accomplished at the same time, so that very subtle operation control is required.
On the other hand, in order to avoid such subtle operation control, a shift of operation timing of the front part and rear part of functional bracket has been proposed. In this case, a changeover needs to be performed in which, during the operation of one of the front part and rear part of functional bracket, the operation of the other is inhibited, and after the operation of one has been finished, the operation of the other is permitted. In the case where such a changeover is accomplished, for example, by utilizing the elastic force of an urging member (a spring etc.), an unusual sound is sometimes produced by a sudden changeover.
[Patent Document 1]: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-52932